A wild frenzy had fastened upon their minds.  He found an added curiosity in studying the faces of Ancliffe and Hough.  The Englishman had run his race.  Any place would suit him for the end.  Neale saw this and marveled at the man’s ease and grace and amiability.  He reminded Neale of Larry Red King—­the same cool, easy, careless air.  Ancliffe would die game.  Hough was not affected by this sort of debauched life any more than he would have been by any other kind.  He preyed on men.  He looked on with cold, gray, expressionless face.  Possibly he, too, would find an end in Benton sooner or later.

These reflections, passing swiftly, made Neale think of himself.  What was true for others must be true for him.  The presence of any of these persons—­of Hough and Ancliffe, of himself, in Beauty Stanton’s gaudy resort was sad proof of a disordered life.

Some one touched him, interrupted his thought.

“You’ve had trouble?”, asked Stanton, who had turned from the others.

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, we’ve all had that....  You seem young to me.”

Hough turned to speak to Stanton.  “Ruby’s going to make trouble.”

“No!” exclaimed the woman, with eyes lighting.

Neale then saw that the girl Ruby, with a short, bold-looking fellow who packed a gun, and several companions of both sexes, had come in from the dance-hall and had taken up a position near him.  Stanton went over to them.  She drew Ruby aside and talked to her.  The girl showed none of the passion that had marked her manner a little while before.  Presently Stanton returned.

“Ruby’s got over her temper,” she said, with evident relief, to Neale.  “She asked me to say that she apologized.  It’s just what I told you.  She’ll fall madly in love with you for what you did....  She’s of good family, Neale.  She has a sister she talks much of, and a home she could go back to if she wasn’t ashamed.”

“That so?” replied Neale, thoughtfully.  “Let me talk to her.”

At a slight sign from Stanton, Ruby joined the group.

“Ruby, you’ve already introduced yourself to this gentleman, but not so nicely as you might have done,” said Beauty.

“I’m sorry,” replied Ruby.  A certain wistfulness showed in her low tones.

“Maybe I was rude,” said Neale.  “I didn’t intend to be.  I couldn’t dance with any one here—­or anywhere....”  Then he spoke to her in a lower tone.  “But I’ll tell you what I will do.  I won a thousand dollars to-night.  I’ll give you half of it if you’ll go home.”

The girl shrank as if she had received a stab.  Then she stiffened.

“Why don’t you go home?” she retorted.  “We’re all going to hell out here, and the gamest will get there soonest.”

She glared at Neale an instant, white-faced and hard, and then, rejoining her companions, she led them away.

Beauty Stanton seemed to have received something of the check that had changed the girl Ruby.